The

World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards based in Bristol, England. It owns and publishes the official rules of the two sports and engages in promotion ...

(WPBSA), the governing body for professional snooker, first introduced a ranking system for professional players in 1976, with the aim of

seeding The term seeding and related terms such as seeded are used in several different contexts: *Sowing, planting seeds in a place or on an object *Cloud seeding, manipulating cloud formations *Seeding (computing), a concept in computing and peer-to-pee ...

players for the

World Snooker Championship The World Snooker Championship is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament in professional snooker. It is also the wealthiest, with total prize money in 2022 of £2,395,000, including £500,000 for the winner. First held in 1927, it ...

. The reigning champion would be automatically seeded first, the losing finalist from the previous year seeded second, and the other seedings based on the ranking list. Initially the rankings were based on performances in the preceding three world championships, with five points for the winner, four for the runner-up, three for losing semi-finalists, two for losing quarter-finalists, and on for losers in the last 16 round. Following the

1982 World Snooker Championship The 1982 World Snooker Championship (officially the 1982 Embassy World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 30 April and 16 May 1982 at the Crucible Theatre, in Sheffield, England. It w ...

, the Jameson International and the Professional Players Tournament which were open to all members of the WPBSA. These events carried points as per the previous system. Points for World Championship finishes were now worth double the previous tariff, with ten points for the winner, eight for the runner up, and so on. In the

1983–84 snooker season The 1983–84 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 4 July 1983 and 19 May 1984. The following table outlines the results for the ranking and the invitational events. __TOC__ Calendar Official ranking ...

, the Lada Classic was added as a ranking tournament, and "merit points" were introduced. Merit points were awarded to players who were required to compete in qualifying rounds of ranking tournaments who reached the last 32, with a full merit point awarded if this was achieved in the world championship, and half a merit point otherwise. No points were awarded to a player who did not win any matches in a given tournament: for example, a top 16 player seeded into the last 32 of the world championship would not win any merit points if they lost their first match. The tournaments that counted towards the 1984/1985 rankings were those which were open to all professional players over three seasons. These tournaments were the Jameson International Open 1982 and

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

, the Professional Players Tournament 1982 and

, the 1984 Lada Classic, and the 1982,

and

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

Embassy World Championships.

Steve Davis Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a commentator, musician, DJ, and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he reached eight World S ...

was ranked first with 32 points, some way ahead of Tony Knowles in second place with 21,

Cliff Thorburn Clifford Charles Devlin Thorburn (born 16 January 1948) is a Canadian retired professional snooker player. Nicknamed "The Grinder" because of his slow, determined style of play, he won the World Snooker Championship in 1980, defeating Alex Hi ...

(3rd, with 20) and

Kirk Stevens Kirk Stevens (born August 17, 1958) is a Canadian former professional snooker player. Career Stevens started playing young, achieving his first aged just 12. He turned professional aged 20, and reached the semi-finals of the World Championship ...

(4th, with 19).

John Virgo John Virgo (born 4 March 1946) is an English former professional snooker player who has since developed a career as a snooker commentator and TV personality. Snooker career Early professional career (1973–1978) Virgo's first notable appea ...

, who did not win any ranking points in the 1983–1984 season was the only player to lose their place in the top 16 from the previous year.

Willie Thorne William Joseph Thorne (4 March 195417 June 2020) was an English professional snooker player. He won one ranking title, the 1985 Classic. He also reached the final of the 1985 UK Championship, losing 16–14 to Steve Davis after leading 13–8 ...

joined the top 16. The Coral Open and Dulux British Open were added for to the ranking list with effect from the 1984–85 season, which meant that performances in those events were taken into account for the 1985/1986 rankings. In the same season, due to changes in sponsors, the Professional Players Tournament became the Rothmans Grand Prix, and the Lada Classic became the Mercantile Credit Classic.

Points Tariff

Rankings

The world rankings for the 61 professional snooker players in the 1984–85 season are listed below. In the table, numbers in parentheses indicate that the player earned merit points: one point in the world championships or half a point in the other ranking events.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snooker world rankings 1984

Rankings 1985 Rankings 1984